Reconstructing Israel’s raid on Entebbe

Press, 24 August 1976, Page 16

Reconstructing Israel’s raid on Entebbe

ROBIN SMITH reviews “Ninety Minutes at Entebbe”

The Israeli commandos who raided the Entebbe airport in Uganda to rescue the 104 hostages of an Air France hijacking, captured three terrorists alive for interrogation, according to a book published in New Zealand at the end of last week. Out of 10 terrorists, seven were killed in the raid and their fingerprints and photographs taken, and the remaining three were captured alive.

The book, “Ninety Minutes at Entebbe,” is by a Canadian author and journalist, William Stevenson. He was a reporter in Kenya and Uganda from 1962 to 1964 and wrote a book about the 1967 Six-Day War shortly after it ended. He is also the author of a book about British war-time intelligence, “A Man Called Intrepid.” Mr Stevenson made use of material from Uri Dan, an Israeli journalist who wrote the first Hebrew book of the raid within five days of the event. After publication Mr Dan had to pay compensation to two other journalists for plagiarising their work.

For his book on the Entebbe raid Mr Stevenson spent 11 days in Israel talking to military and government officials as well as to some of the men who took part in the raid and some of the hostages.

Some more details to come out of the book are:

The use of Nairobi airport in Kenya as a refuelling stop for the return journey of the raiders was planned and approved well before the force left Israel. An Israeli Phantom jet shadowed President Amin’s private jet on its flight to Mauritius for an African Summit conference and the possibility was considered of intercepting the president’s jet and forcing it down. Another idea was to tamper with the fuel tanks of the jet before it left Entebbe so that the pilot would have to make an emergency landing at Nairobi.

An Israeli missile ship was dispatched off the East African coast to act as a communications centre because of a fear that plans for the raid would be discovered and the troops would arrive at Entebbe to find the hostages gones. A white Mercedes Benz was painted black to resemble President Amin’s personal car and taken to Entebbe. Israeli troops, including the field commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Yonni Netanyahu, who was killed in the raid, were made up with blackened faces and Ugandan uniforms. They surprised the airport security by driving up in the black Mercedes and shooting the guards as they saluted. After the first group of hostages had been freed and flown to Paris, an American can doctor was hypnotised to extract details of the airport at Entebbe and the ter-

rorists that none of the hostages had been able to recall of their own accord.

President Amin apparently slept through the attack, though his house is not far from the airport, and knew nothing of it until his TelAviv contact, the former military attache LieutenantColonel Baruch Bar-Lev, telephoned a puzzled President Amin and said “thank ■you for what you have done.” Stevenson quotes Amin in a later conversation with Bar-Lev as saying: “Not as a politician but as a professional soldier, I must tell you that the action was very good indeed and your commandos were excellent.” The aircraft used for the raid were four C-130 Hercules military cargo planes which were given civilian registration . numbers and two Boeing 707 s with their Israeli Air Force markings painted over and El Al civilian airline markings substituted. The four Hercules landed at Entebbe and the two Boeings remained in flight above the airport. One of these acted as an . airborn control centre for the operation and had on board the Israeli Air Force Commander (General Benny Peled), who was listed on the manifest as a South African furrier called Sidney Cohen. Doctors, nurses and emergency operating equipment were aboard the other Boeing which was to act as a flying hospital. Injured troops and

hostages were transferred on board this aircraft at the Nairobi refuelling stop. Mr Stevenson enlarges on the speculation about the use of Nairobi airport by saying that three days before the attack a team of 50 Israeli specialists disguised as businessmen flew to Nairobi to set up the refuelling operation.

A few of the specialist set up headquarters in the private home of an Israeli trader. From there discreet inquiries were made with the chief of the Nairobi police (Lionel Byrn Davies), and an ex-British Special Air Services commander, Bruce McKenzie, a confidante of President Kenyatta. When the two Boeing 707 s landed at Nairobi on their way to Entebbe, they taxied to the maximum security area of the airport where El Al planes customarily receive the protection of the Kenyan police. Mr Stevenson says that Lionel Davies was one of the few Kenyan officials who knew why these unusually strict precautions were necessary.

Mr Stevenson says that the commander of President Kenyatta’s General Service Unit (Mr Geoffrey Karithii) was able to give assurances that the President would “turn a blind eye” if the G.S.U. and the airport police isolated the rescue force during the stopover. Kenya’s attorney general (Mr Charles Njojo) offered the legal opinion that so long as the laws governing international civil aviation were observed facilities could not be refused.

Reports of the raid have previously suggested that the Israelis told the Ugandans as they approached the airport that they were bringing in the imprisoned terrorists that the hijackers wanted released, and this made the Ugandans turn on the runway lights. According to the account given in the book no such message was given to the Ugandans, but the first Hercules came in to find the airport a blaze of lights. These were later extinguished once the fighting began and before the final assault aircraft had landed, offering it the cover all pilots had expected. Another widespread report that diversionary bombing was carried out at one end of the runway, perhaps by Israeli agents who crossed into Uganda from Kenya, is said by Mr Stevenson to be untrue. The French newspaper “Le Monde” claimed from Nairobi sources that it was Israeli agents who destroyed the Ugandan Air Force jets, but the book account attributes this to members of the assault party. The Israeli forces were divided into teams all with specific tasks to perform. The commandos were given a full briefing on the layout of the Entebbe airport and

the team assigned to kill the terrorists were all issued with identakit pictures so that they could recognise them instantly.

The first assault teams killed the terrorists and Ugandan security guards and herded the hostages into one of the waiting aircraft. Emergency medical treatment was given to the wounded once on board the Hercules. The main Entebbe radar centre was raided by one team of commandos and they also carried off Rus-sian-built equipment and machinery from the quarters of Palestinian pilots learning to fly the Russian-built MiGs of the Ugandan air force. Expensive Israeli equipment was left behind at the airport to make room for the captured machinery. The book gives no idea of the fate of the three hijackers it is claimed were captured alive or indeed much to back up the assertion of capture. All the terrorists are believed to have been affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, not to be confused with the independent Palestine Liberation Organisation. Among the hijackers were two Germans. Gabriele Kroche-Tiedemann, aged 24, and Wilfried Boese, aged 27, both associates of the international terrorist Carlos Ramiriz (“The Jackel”). Both the hijackers were shot in the first minutes of the assault.

Ninety Minutes at Entebbe. By William Stevenson. Corgi Books. 216 pp. Ulus. N.Z. price $1.95.